I took a break from all social media. It ended up lasting about three years and what I learned surprised me.
I have to say, throughout this break, I wasn’t living under a rock. Actually, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, I was traveling all over the world, having amazing experiences on the daily, and building a business with my partner. According to what a lot of my friends told me, I was “living my best life”. I guess this is a thing people say and I guess my life was 100% insta-ready, whatever the even hell that means.
Here’s the thing, I was never really a huge fan of social media, simply because I’m a private person. Believe it or not (since here I am writing a blog for anyone in the world to see), I keep to myself, I’m not much of a “look at me! look at me!” type of person, I’m typically not desperate for attention and I usually only give my opinion when others ask for it. ‘Typically’ and ‘usually’ have to be used here because I have my moments. Those moments are almost always alcohol-induced.
What I started to notice a few years back is social media transitioned from innocently sharing family photos and pics from a most recent vaycay to rants about what’s right and wrong. Along with a phony and even imaginary life through the lens of social media. People obviously only shared all the beautiful, picturesque images of their perfect lives.
What was worse than the narcism, was looking around in any public space at any given moment and every single person is staring into the screen of their phones. It didn’t matter the age or if they were alone or with a group, or family. It was obvious that most people were highly addicted to their devices.
It seemed everyone around me, no matter where I was in the world, spent what appeared to be, every waking moment scrolling. Shitting their life away looking at what everyone else was doing, not living their own life, and not even being present in the moment.
I would be out to dinner with friends and my heart would break, looking around at each and every one of them, staring down at their screen for the next dopamine hit of likes or comments. It’s like sitting in a Broadway show and everyone around you is shooting up heroin instead of enjoying the production of the show. Like WTF is going on!?
This was so sickening to me, I just couldn’t get on board. So, I was just anti-social media. Life was beautiful, I didn’t waste hours in my day scrolling or trying to capture the perfectly angled selfie. I was living my life, fully!
All the while thinking, are there other anti-social media people like me? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not necessarily anti-social, just the whole online phoniness, narcissism and noise was anything but social to me. Every time I met someone they’d naturally always ask for my Instagram or Facebook to stay connected and I’d get into a quick anti-social media shpeal. They either agreed about also not being on board or spending much time online (whether it was true or not, I’m not sure), or they’d give me a completely blank stare.
There you have it, my rant about why I never a huge fan to begin with. Writing this makes me second guess getting on board a bit (lol). So now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest. Let’s move on, shall we?
It’s now 2020, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, I’m living nomadically, currently in Malaysia. I see an itch I need to scratch, I see a need to be met.
This break from social media taught me exactly what that itch is.
So, here’s what I learned:
I was following the wrong people
Here’s what happened and how I got sucked back in. I found a group of other digital nomads and the community lived on a Facebook group. Which makes logical sense, how would we all best communicate if we’re all located in different parts of the world? So, I hopped back on Facebook for the first time in 3-years, after getting locked out and dealing with the headache of resetting my login info, I was back.
For the following month, I would only get on Facebook looking for resources from the digital nomad community. I was now part of several and they were awesome! If you’re a nomad newbie, seriously, get started with the groups on Facebook if you aren’t already. Anywho, I started to immediately go to the groups tab only and not engage with my feed at all. I realized almost immediately, I was following the wrong people on social media.
Without thinking about it, I was just interested in the groups and that was the only reason I was going to Facebook and I became very aware that the problem wasn’t with social media as a platform. The platforms and technology is amazing and can be used for good. My feed was all f*cked up.
I had no purpose
To me, social media was more of a waste of time. More than anything, I just saw how much time people wasted. In person, when you see every single person on their phone like a cyborg or get online and see people posting 6 or 12 times per day! WTF, who has time for this? When I posted in the past, it was innocent. Really, I thought I had to. I have to stay connected to people, I need to let them know what I’m up to. I need to see if they like or comment on my post. I need to feel accepted.
I wasn’t completely conscious of this. Actually I didn’t think about it at all. I didn’t ask, “what’s my purpose with this post, photo, video, story, etc.?”
The truth was, I don’t need anyone to accept me or anything I’m doing. Honestly, many of the people I followed on facebook or instagram could give two shits about what I had for lunch and visa-verse. No hard feelings. I truly feel most people are good people and everyone is just trying their best. But I knew for me, I had to be okay with changing my mind and saying bye. Even if every single person I was connected with on social (friend, follower, whatever), it would still be a waste of time if I didn’t have a clear purpose.
I now have purpose.
When you make the shift of using social media platforms as a way to actually create good in the world, everything comes to perspective. There are a TON of people doing this. It’s not the people posting pictures of their cats or highlights from the last vacation. It’s the people actually creating things.
When social media is used in this way, it’s beautiful. I’m totally on board. But, I had another issue…
I realized I can’t conform to ‘best practices’. I refuse to spend my precious time here on earth, trying to blur out the sunspots on my face or take 50 photos of me on the beach to get the best angle. No thanks! I’m not going to buy a huge DSL camera or a powerful light ring. I’m just going to be me and spend as much time as I want with it, instead of listening to all the ‘experts’ rant about all the tools and tactics you need for leveraging social media. And only posting the most amazing, beautiful, engaging, curated content.
Why do I feel like I don’t have to listen to this ‘expert’ advice because I have a purpose. I have intentionality and a burning passion to help people. If you don’t like my content because the lighting isn’t perfect then take a hike.
showing off instead of showing how
Social media always gave me this icky feeling of ‘look at me! look at me! oh God, please someone look at me!’ The dark side of social media is basically narcissism on steroids. Most people haven’t done the inner-work to live an abundant life, but instead, try achieving this by doing outer-work. When I say outer-work, I mean looking to other people either in real life or digital life for their identity and meaning.
When I ask people, “what’s important to you?” Many people can’t answer this question. Why? They’re spending their time looking outward and not inward. Social media amplifies this. Millions and millions of people, each and every day, logging in to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, …. to feel alive. It’s cheap, superficial and fleeting. The Facebook group feature is what brought me back into the social media world. But what’s making me stay is my purpose – There’s a huge difference between showing off and showing how. I’m here to show people how.
Okay, so I actually haven’t even started posting content yet (lol). I just made the decision that Fancy Nomad should have an Instagram and Pinterest, at least. I want to put together a P.O.A. (Plan of Action) so that I stay aligned with my values and the freedom I’ve created for myself. I would guess that even people who are walking-the-talk and showing how instead of showing off are still spending way too much time on social media platforms and allowing it to run their lives. Many are looking for the next like or comment or excited that their post might go viral.
I’m just afraid I’ll fall victim to this. I know it’s a silly fear because I’m way to conscious of it. I’ve just encountered too much of the unhealthy version of social media users and not enough of the healthy ones. I feel as though the only people I’ve met are either 100% in or 100% out. I’d love to meet people who had proper balance (to their definition), so they engaged in social media to spread their purpose/message/show-how, but aren’t consumed by it.
How do you handle social media? Do you have a purpose behind your participation? Are you balanced in your approach?